


something's gone terribly wrong

by flags



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: H.P Lovecraft homage, sherlock shindig
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-11 23:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flags/pseuds/flags
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick attempt to throw a bit of eldritch horror. Sherlock starts to suffer from headaches and night terrors.</p><p>for the genre swap prompt in the sherlock shindig.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something's gone terribly wrong

It was the headaches that were the first sign. Sherlock complained and drove himself further into his work and his experiments to distract from them, especially because John had taken charge of distributing every painkiller in the house to stop Sherlock from overdosing, ever the doctor.The migraines would come and go, buzzing under Sherlock’s skin and making him feel as though his head was full of hundreds of wasps that would soon swarm out of every pore in his face, their incessant humming underlining his every thought and making his skin crawl. However Sherlock was far too determined to let a thing like a headache get to him.

—-

What came next were the dreams. What little sleep Sherlock allowed himself to partake in dwindled as each night he was tormented by terrible nightmare that had him groaning and occasionally flinging himself into the bathroom to retch repeatedly into the toilet. Each time frustrated him to no end and he spent his time scouring the web for solutions rather than sleeping. Dismissing several options initially but eventually trying even the more obscure and dubious advice given from health and answer websites. John took note of Sherlock’s increasingly frantic and harried behaviour and tried to get him to discuss his dreams, he did, after all, have some experience with nightmares.

“I can’t John, half the time I can’t remember or delete them.”

“Well what do you remember, I mean, all that space in your… mind-palace-thing, surely some details of your dream are in there, tucked under a rug or something.”

John’s attempt at humour fell flat but seemed to encourage Sherlock regardless, the distressing pallid detective pressing his palms together and inhaling slowly as he ordered his thoughts.

“All I can recall,” he started, voice slightly raw. “are impressions of a castle, illogically large and of a strange architectural design, I can’t quite describe it. Theres a sense of something rotting about the place and suddenly I see something, vague shapes and distracting noises.” He frowns, unhappy at how inarticulate he’s being. “It’s not something I ca properly explain, to say the least; they’re not very pleasant experiences.”

John rubbed his hands over his face, it was far too early in the morning, and looked Sherlock in the eyes.

“They’re only dreams, nothings going to happen to you.”

Sherlock turned away in annoyance. “Of course I know that! I realise, logically, that the simulations of my subconscious mind hold no physical ramifications or prediction of events. However as a doctor I had been hoping you’d have more substantial advice on how to deal with the emotional side effects.” 

The fact that Sherlock had even mentioned any emotions on his side gave John reason for thought.

That night he talked Sherlock into slipping under the covers in John’s room and encouraged him to relax. In the dim light from the window Sherlock tracked John’s breathing, the flicker of emotions on his face as he started to drift to sleep, the texture and scents of John’s room and John himself.  Sherlock fell asleep clinging to John’s wrist to keep count of his pulse, hoping it would anchor him. He still slept fitfully, shifting in and out between the eerie dreams and nothingness, when he awoke with a cry John stopped his thrashing by wrapping him in his arms and they remained that way for the rest of the night; Sherlock attempting to calm his breathing and John struggling to stay awake with him, so they could stick it out together.

\---

They had been called to a case in a fishing town, a series of break ins had lead to things going mysteriously missing, Sherlock quickly connected the fact that they were all blue items and the two of them were in the process of interviewing a man who’s seemed so bucolic he could have stepped out of a period piece. 

That is, they interviewed him until his wife opened the door to check on them and a border collie trotted out, took one look at Sherlock and began to growl and cross in front of it’s master.

“Now what’s got into you then?”  

The owner tried to soothe the dog by petting it but it refused to take it’s eyes off of Sherlock.

“That’s strange, ‘e usually loves strangers, will lick your face if you try an’ pat ‘im.”

John glanced at the dog and then at Sherlock who had gone stiff with surprise.

“It’s weird, Sherlock and dogs normally get on like a house on fire.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to say something when the dog let out a yowl and lunged at him, scratching and snapping madly while Sherlock threw his arms up to protect his face and neck. The owner struggled but managed to yank the angry dog off of Sherlock and drag it back into the house.

“Down Shep! Bad dog! None of that!”

He threw them an apologetic smile from around the door.

“Sorry about that , he’s never reacted like that before, maybe you’ve got something on your coat that smells funny, set ‘im off. I hope you find whoever’s been taking everyone’s things.”

He shut the door, a scratching noise could be heard as the hound pawed at it from the inside.

———-

Their investigations lead them to a structure that was more woodshed than house, clearly abandoned a long time ago it was covered in less graffiti than would have occurred in a more urban area.

They had been directed there by a group of teenagers who obviously used it to hide their pot smoking from their parents, the musty interior scattered with empty beer cans and cigarette butts. John ducked to avoid a spider web as Sherlock began pacing the small room, examining every detail of it and biting a fingernail absentmindedly while his other hand ran across every surface, testing it.

A flash of blood caught John’s attention, he grabbed Sherlock’s hand from his mouth while the detective ran of a stream of deductions about the shack’s dubious inhabitation and history. John examined the nail to see that sherlock’s biting had cut it down to the quick and the finger was not only bleeding from it but the nail itself had also started to whiten and peel in places, and it wasn’t the only finger that had been reduced to this state.

“Jesus, Sherlock, you’ve got to stop biting your nails or they could get infected and-” Sherlock stopped him by raising the finger of his other hand and fixing his stare on the floorboards. 

With his hand still held in John’s he took several paces across the floor, stopped, and walked back, grinning at John slightly. John caught on.

“The echo…it’s hollow, there’s a space underneath the floor!”

“Very good John.” Sherlock said with only a little bit of sarcasm.

It was the works of minutes to remove the individual floorboards, Sherlock explained how the frequent use by the teenagers redistributed the dust and dirt that caked the hut which helped hide the movement of floor boards.  once removed John dragged his eyes from Sherlock’s now bloody and dirty hands and looked done into the blackness of a direct drop of about two metres into darkness.

“Could do with a torch right about now.”

Sherlock hummed in agreement, tilting his head as he looked into the black of the hole.

John pulled out his mobile. “I’ll call for one, let them know we’ve found the thief’s hidey hole.”

Sherlock snatched John’s phone from him, pulling out his own.

“Now where’s the fun in that? Besides we need both phones, they’ll do for lighting the way a touch, we’ll just have to stay close.”

With a flick of his wrist he pocketed both mobiles and sat on the edge of the floor, preparing to drop down.

“You coming?”

John scratched his neck nervously but the adrenaline had already started in him and he was soon seated next to Sherlock with his legs dangling down too.

“Right, but if I hurt my leg from the jump I’m blaming you.”

\---

The combined light of their phones wasn’t quite enough to properly light their way but it kept them from running into any walls or tripping over any tree roots that protruded from the curved walls of the damp dirt tunnel.

John had been brainstorming titles for this case’s blog entry to Sherlock to distract him from picking at the skin on his hands that had only just stopped bleeding. Mostly variations on bowerbirds and fishermen. Sherlock had already narrowed down the suspect to “Charlie Danforth” who the small pub gossiping had revealed to be one of the more reclusive town members, who only left his house to buy food and books. The tunnel, he had explained, was clearly a pre existing structure that Charlie had probably discovered the same way they had while hiding possessions in the shack. AN underground chamber being a more suitable hiding place obviously than the local teens’ hang out.

as they continued the quality of the ground changed and a sweep of Sherlock’s phone revealed that the walls floor and ceiling had become paved with stone. Sherlock pressed a palm again the wall and sniffed the stone, giving it a lick.

“These stones are from over thirty kilometres away.” he sad in disbelief. “Why would anybody go to so much trouble for something hidden away?”

They continued down the tunnel, the air becoming more stale and a faint smell of root emanating from ahead of them.

When they reached the end there was a small lantern that Sherlock took the opportunity to light, pocketing the phones as it dimly lit up the room at the end of the tunnel.

The space was surprisingly spacious and smelt heavily of fish, the bones of which were stacked up in piles around the room. Spread out around the room were clothes, toys, bottles, pillows, and other miscellany all in varying shades of blue. At the centre ob this obsessive collection there was a small table with a book and a statuette.

“I suppose that’s one of Danforth’s books then?”  John muttered, covering his nose with his collar to filter the air somewhat. Sherlock was focussed on the statue, a pained and confused expression crossing his face.

The statuette was roughly fifty centimetres tall and carved from obsidian or some other black stone, it’s eerie black surface somehow seeming to absorb the light in the room like a black hole. It depicted a strange being that wasn’t quite humanoid squatting on the base, several appendages wrapped around it, it’s face blank except for dozens of closed eyes, silk a sleeping spider.

Sherlock glared at the queer piece of art and opened his mouth to say something but then stopped and stared some more.

“Where do you think Danforth picked that up? hardly something you’d find at a sunday market.” John chuckled nervously, but Sherlock wasn’t listening.

He took a step towards the table. Then another, brushing his fingers over the book’s title which seemed to be in a made up language thoughtfully. Then he reached out to lay a hand on the statue and the moment he came into contact with it drew in a sharp, shuddery breath.

——-

It was the teenagers who noticed the hole in their shack and brought the news to the local officer who had been waiting on Sherlock to contact him. A team had returned and defended into the dirt hole, finding John Watson curled up against a wall of dirt where the tunnel had collapsed. They took his hysterical gibbering for shock at Sherlock being caught in the cave in and tried to help him up. It was only when they got close enough that they realised he was covered in cuts and scratches, one part of his chest visible through a ripped hole showed signs of a chemical burn. They had to half carry him all the way back to the shack beefier they had the reception to call for medical assistance.

Much later when a doctor managed to get Watson lucid again they asked him what had happened down there.

“I caused the landslide, to stop it escaping.”

The doctor frowned at him with concern.

“You… murdered Mr Holmes?”

“No, no no, I-” he let out a choking sob. “I didn’t realise I was too late, I should have done something when he complained about the headaches.”

“Mr Watson-“

“But I didn’t and it- it was calling him!” He looked up at the doctor with a wild stare. “I took his body and- oh god- it twisted it… Is split him open like he was nothing and grew and grew and grew-“

“Mr Watson calm down, you’re not making any sense, I’m going to sedate you.” A nurse came over at his signal but John continued talking.

“I had to do it, it wasn’t just going to kill me, nothing that sounds like that would be satisfied with only two people, I don’t think all the people in the world would-” He flinched as the needle pricked his arm. 

“No, no what are you doing?” John’s hands unclenched to reveal that he had torn his skin with his fingernails and made his palms bleed slightly. “I can’t go to sleep! Sherlock’s nightmares didn’t even stop when I was there what’s going to happen if I’m” he exhaled shakily “alone..”

The doctor and the nurse only lowered him back into the hospital bed slowly.


End file.
